Baby

A former co-worker brought her four-month-old daughter to the office yesterday. Our IT guy (who sits next to me) was helping her with her computer. So we were chatting and when the baby woke up I got to hold her for awhile.

I tend to like babies until they start to cry or poop. This one was adorable though not very expressive. I really had to work at it to get much of a response out of her. But I enjoyed singing and talking to her and eventually she smiled a little. She's at the stage where she likes to stand on your leg but has good control of her head so you don't have to worry too much about head-butts.

I was watching a show the other night about baby development. One experiment was testing whether an understanding of mathematics is innate (or at least developed very early on). A four- or five-month-old would be shown a Mickey Mouse toy which would then be screened from view. The baby would be shown another Mickey Mouse toy being put behind the screen. When the screen came down and there were the expected two toys, the baby would soon get bored and look around. But if the screen came down and there was only one toy, the baby would stare and stare, as if in disbelief.

Another experiment was to discover at what point a baby recognizes that others are different than itself. A baby would be given a choice between fish crackers and broccoli florets as a snack. Of course the baby would choose the crackers. The experimenter would then show a distinct preference for the broccoli. She would then ask the baby to give her a snack. Younger babies would always give the experimenter the crackers: their own preference. But older babies (and I'm sure they discovered at what age this happened but I don't remember) would recognize that the experimenter preferred the broccoli and gave her a floret.